Bliksem en donderdag #5

A Thursday enlightening event

Bliksem en Donderdag ‘a Thursday enlightening event’ is all about inspiration, interaction, connection and acceleration. This new platform gives makers, thinkers, doers and dreamers a chance to share, test and accelerate their ideas. VPRO Medialab took the initiative and invited TU/e, Baltan Laboratories and High Tech Campus to work together on this new platform. The 5th edition will take place on Thursday February 16th.

From lunchtime session to pitch platform

Based on the Philips ‘lunchtime sessions’ at the Natlab in the ’60s, scientists, artists, students and entrepreneurs from various disciplines come together to informally share ideas about innovation, products and ideas. Discovery, invention and innovation are in Eindhoven’s DNA. Designers, artists, IT specialists, labs and students work every day on new products, concepts and ideas. VPRO Medialab believes that sharing these plans will lead to the creation of better plans.

Several pitchers present to the audience the dilemma that he or she has encountered during the development of their product or idea. Two experts give feedback on each pitch. Then it is the audience’s turn: with advice, tips for interesting connections and experiences, those present help the pitchers further in their design or creation process.

Be there? Register for free!

Join in and register for this enlightening evening! Everyone is welcome, but we only have 90 places available. The evening if free of charge, including a drink voucher. Use this form to register. Official language is English.

Pitch your idea? Sign up!

Do you have an original or innovative idea but are looking for extra inspiration in the development of your concept, help with the technical issues or the right partners? Pitch your plan and make unexpected connections! Send a mail with your idea to medialab@vpro.nl.

Dinner option

Prior to the pitch night, it is possible to join us for dinner. Get to know the pitchers and other visitors in an informal setting. You can choose a meat, fish or vegetarian main course with bread from the Vlaamsch Broodhuys as a starter. Cost are € 20 and dinner starts at 6pm. Mail to reservations@kazerne.nl or call 040 304 1388 to make reservation and mention Bliksem an Donderdag.

The Muppets

Two ‘Muppets’ are present for each edition. Two experts from a certain discipline such as technology, design, media, etc. listen from the sidelines just like Statler and Waldorf from The Muppet Show, and they give each pitcher feedback or pose a critical question. Then it is the audience’s turn. The Muppets for the next edition will be announced soon.

Vivian van Gaal

Vivian van Gaal is a cultural program maker. She currently works as head of public affairs at MU art space at Strijp-S. In recent years she has worked on many projects in the fields of art, technology and education at STRP Festival, Tante Netty, Woensel Super Toll! and Studium Generale.

Peter Kentie

Peter Kentie is managing director at Eindhoven365, the company responsible for the city marketing of Eindhoven region. He is fond of complex, multifaceted, multi-stakeholder projects related to marketing and brand building. Peter is one of the co-founders of STRP Festival and in recent years he has worked as marketing and media manager at PSV, was chair of the board at Baltan Laboratories and has been closely involved with the Dutch Design Week. He has a big passion for Estonia and supports the country in reaching a bigger audience.

The pitchers

Read more about this edition's pitchers below.
Would you like to present an idea to a wide audience? Sign up via medialab@vpro.nl.

Jesse Koenders - Alternatives to LIDAR?

University Racing Eindhoven (URE), a student team from the TU Eindhoven, aims to educate engineers in a practical manner while they study. To do this, URE participates in the renowned Formula Student Electric competition every year. A team of about 50 students, full-time and part-time, make this happen. By combining the knowledge of multiple disciplines like Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Automotive Engineering and Computer Science, an Electric Formula Student Racecar is build.This year the competition has introduced a driverless part, aiming for even more ingenuity in this competition. URE aims to participate in FS Driverless in the summer of 2018. To do this

Road- and object-detection is of upmost importance. A LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging system) would seem the most logical choice, but also an expensive one. Jesse is looking for advice about a less expensive, but effective alternative to LIDAR with the driverless automotive industry in mind.

Floriane Misslin - Portraying a research in contemporary media

Uni—Sex is a project that started with a visual analysis of unisex fashion campaigns. While studying how the male and female body are displayed in a genderless image, Floriane observed the visual codes and tried to understand their social meaning. Her research has developed as a forecast on how unisex fashion imagery should evolve to adapt to modern conceptions of gender. She is looking for formats and narratives that work best to portray her research in contemporary media. At Bliksem en Donderdag she is hoping to hear about outsider’s expectations and feedbacks and is looking for a brainstorm on which media she can use and in which way.

Fidan Rustamova – Spinal: wear your confindence

Lia is a wearable device and a mobile application that helps people develop a habit of a good posture by training your muscles. It does that by tracking your posture and shoulder position using sensors located on each shoulder. Lia works very simply: when you slouch, or have your shoulders aligned improperly, you get notified about it! Lia is a new way of treating your posture, while boosting confidence and preventing health issues. It gently attaches to skin, giving the most accurate results, while staying discrete underneath clothes.
Our device communicates with the user via our app, reminding him or her to not only correct the posture, but also to even out the shoulders. We recently hear a lot of people saying that the problem with wearables is that after using them for a month, people forget about them or leave somewhere on a shelf and never use them again. How to prevent that?

Mohamed Emam - Vditory

The Vditory eyeglasses are meant to be used by blind people, who can wear them like normal glasses. The aim of Vditory glasses is to change blind people’s lives and to enable them to interact more with the community. Vditory can read any text in front of the user, in more than one language and even if it was upside down. Vditory can describe everything around the user, recognize people’s gender, age, emotion and their faces as well. Vditory can also recognize currency and colours. At Bliksem en Donderdag Mohammed is looking for recommendations about product design, manufacturing, and prototyping for Vditory.

Tessie Hartjes – Empowered by Robots-challenge

The increased presence of robots in our world scares lots of people. They tend to think robots will cost millions of jobs. But can robots also create jobs and employment? Can they empower those who are currently having trouble finding a job because of the specific situation they are in?

That is what the Empowered by Robots-challenge is about. It focusses on the following questions: How can we ensure that people who have difficulty to find and retain a job can make use of opportunities, enabled by robots and other technologies to execute new jobs? Could robots possibly provide employees with superpower, unique qualities which increase their working chances? What technologies and people will hire themselves out at the employment agency of the future?

This design competition challenges designers, technicians, students, start-ups, robot enthusiasts, engineers, futurists and everyone with a fondness for robots and humans to reflect on new jobs in an automated labour market. At Bliksem and Donderdag the team is hoping to gather participants for their challenge.

Erna van Holland - City Story Festival Eindhoven

Stories tell so much about a city. Foundation City Stories wants to connect the special places and neighbourhoods, the history, the stories, the creativity and the generations of the city of Eindhoven. But finding the stories of industrial Eindhoven is only the first step. Foundation City Stories is also looking for innovative ways to translate these stories and to let the places that are connected with these stories come alive. It all comes together in the first City Story Festival where people can go from place to place to hear, see and experience the city stories. A living archive will be built along the way. For the first City Story Festival Erna is looking for partners to gather stories, storytellers to make creative productions or to be in any form part of the festival.